Inside Duke Medicine

DUSON students help pupils at Durham school

Students from the Duke University School of Nursing are working at Durham’s Eastway Elementary School to help children and families define and address complex health education needs.

As part of a program called “Raising Health, Raising Hope,” the nursing students are working with families who are part of a Child and Family Support Team comprising a social worker, a school nurse, a school guidance counselor, the principal and assistant principal.

The support team project is a collaborative effort of the state Department of Health & Human Services and the state Department of Public Instruction. It operates in 21 counties to partner schools and families with community agencies in creating individualized solutions for each student to succeed in the classroom.

“Raising Health, Raising Hope is an opportunity for the Duke nursing students to assist their community in addressing health education issues while learning how to create a support network for a diverse, underserved population,” said Rosa M. Solorzano, M.D., M.P.H., associate director of Duke School of Nursing’s Global and Community Health Initiatives. “As nursing students work with the team to customize the health education curriculum, they learn with the group how to identify on many levels barriers to learning and development. The group as a whole uncovers not only the symptoms of disparities in health and education but the causes as well.”

The nursing students also conducted other activities such as eye screenings for Eastway children. As a result of the Eastway experience, one nursing student has decided to pursue public health.

In the focus groups to which families from the high poverty (539 students, with 96 % on free and reduced lunch), heavily African American (54%) and Latino (46%) school community were invited, teams identified that hygiene, mental health, violence, ADHD, nutrition, oral health, asthma, and puberty needed to be addressed in the health education curriculum.

The Raising Health, Raising Hope effort at Eastway is being supported by a $4,000 grant from the Duke University Health System Charitable Grants Fund and a $6,000 grant from the N.C. Area Health Education Centers Program, which works with academic institutions to improve the health of North Carolinians. The Raising Health, Raising Hope model is also in place at Genesis Home and Durham Rescue Mission.